Some of conventional ink-jet printers are structured to print an object on a print medium and then cut the medium in accordance with the printed image. An example of such ink-jet printers is an ink-jet printer equipped with a cutting head described in Patent Document 1. This ink-jet printer has a cutting head and an ink-jet head, wherein an image is printed on a medium by the ink-jet head, and the image-printed medium is cut by the cutting head along, for example, the contour of the printed image.
[Patent Document 1]JP 2006-95822 A.
When an image is printed on a medium and the image-printed medium is then cut in accordance with the image printed thereon as described in the prior art document, adjustment of origin points is necessary beforehand. Specifically, it is necessary to adjust an origin point based on which the image is printed by the ink-jet head and an origin point based on which the image-printed medium is cut by the cutting head before the printing and cutting operations actually start. The origin point adjustment is performed, for example, as described below. An origin point adjusting image stored in the ink-jet printer is printed on a medium to generate cutting data based on this printed image. Then, the medium is cut based on the generated cutting data by the cutting head along the contour of the printed image. After the medium is cut, any misalignment between the printed image and cut part is checked. Then, positions of the printing origin point and the cutting origin point are adjusted based on the detected misalignment in order for the position of cutting by the cutting head and the contour position of the printed image to match with each other.
The origin point adjustment, however, requires an operator to perform the steps below; visually check an amount of misalignment, adjust the printing and cutting origin points in accordance with the amount of misalignment, and then perform the printing and cutting operations again using the origin point adjusting image to recheck the adjusted origin points. Thus, adjustment of the printing and cutting origin points conventionally entails a very complicated procedure.